Child Abuse,Imagination and Hypnotizability

Abstract

Our research was designed to provide a rigorous test of J. R. Hilgard's hypothesis that hypnotizability is related to a history of physical punishment and to imaginative involvements. College students who reported a history of physical abuse (N = 21) and sexual abuse (N = 23) were compared with control subjects who either lost a parent by way of death or divorce (N = 20) or who were from intact homes (N = 35), under test conditions that minimized the possibility that context effects would prejudice the findings. No support was found for the hypothesis that increased hypnotizability was associated with a history of physical or sexual abuse: All of the groups were indistinguishable on measures of objective and subjective response to hypnosis. However, consistent with Hilgard's hypothesis, physically and sexually abused subjects were found to be more fantasy-prone than subjects in both nonabused control conditions.